


colorblind

by corpsesoldier



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Ableism, Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, canon typical trauma, everyone has trauma and I Will make them talk about it, internalized ableism, post-buried, season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23676568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corpsesoldier/pseuds/corpsesoldier
Summary: "Made me colorblind, I guess, like a…” Daisy almost laughs, chokes on it. She feels like she’s choking a lot these days. “Like a dog.”--Daisy figures out how to live in a world not stained red by blood.
Relationships: Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Jonathan Sims & Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Comments: 18
Kudos: 133





	1. red

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just a little creature trying to cope with not having heard from Daisy or Basira in s5 yet, okay?

Daisy’s world was stained in shades of red for so long, she forgot it could be any different. The blood was everything, everything she heard and felt and tasted, everything she saw. It curled up and made a home inside her chest. Made her believe the racing pulse was the sound of her own heart. 

She had _let_ it make a home there. She wasn’t strong enough to pretend otherwise, not anymore.

It really had been about protecting people, once. She was sure about that, in the way you knew things about family you’d never met, a flat colorless fact about someone else’s life. It had been about killing monsters, so they couldn’t hurt anyone again. Then it had been about killing before they could hurt anyone at all. 

Eventually it had just been about killing. About looking into their eyes right at the end, everything red red red, and knowing they were afraid of her. 

The blood leeched every other color out of the world. 

And then there was the coffin and there wasn’t even red anymore, just black, just dark. No light in the choke, no anything. Nothing but the sound of her own real heart beating fast and feather light in her chest. The steady thump of the hunt was smothered out of her veins, and in the almost-quiet she could hear her own thoughts for the first time in years.

For a while, Daisy thought it had been worth it. A little quiet. A little suffering to break the chain around her neck. If anyone deserved it, surely she did. 

But there was no way back to the surface, not for her. She was going to spend eternity in the dark, crushed by earth and stone and her thoughts turning useless circles of shame and terror and there was no light at all there was _nothing_ she didn’t even have the option of just being a fucking animal who didn’t have to _think_ anymore who didn’t have to _feel_ everything and—

And Jon had been there, in the black with her. Jon held her hand and it wasn’t earth. He spoke and it didn’t sound like blood. 

He pulled her out of the coffin. Dragged her back to the world above. They spill onto the floor together, two badly-strung skeletons knocking bruises into each other, and they don’t move. 

The blood is there again, a whisper against her eardrums, probing, promising. But her thin heartbeat still flutters in her chest. It isn’t inside her anymore. And if she did nothing else in what would realistically be her very short life, she would keep it that way. 

They lay in a scattered pile of dozens of tape recorders and she lets the overlapping voices, the familiar static hiss, drown it out. 

Then the door bangs open, the sound going off like an explosion in her head. Daisy flinches and all her muscles scream in protest. Her face twists into what feels like a snarl and she flinches from that, too. 

The shaft of fluorescent light pouring in from the doorway splashes the room with color. Not even exciting colors, just gray floor and brown wood and shiny black plastic. But they aren’t red. How long had she not realized, how long had she gone thinking it was normal?

What else had it taken from her?

Basira stands in the doorway. Basira, who Daisy thought she’d never see again, and she’s _golden_ , she’s sunlight, she’s so bright that Daisy’s eyes immediately fill with tears. She squeezes her eyes shut. Focuses very hard on breathing slow and even to keep the sob out of her throat.

So long in the dark. A lifetime soaked in blood. All she’d wanted to do was see Basira again and she can’t even _look_ at her, it’s too much, it hurts, looking at Basira isn’t supposed to _hurt_.

“Hi,” she breathes. It isn’t enough. It would have to be.

-

If someone had told Daisy half a year ago that she would find the Magnus Institute soothing, she probably would have barked a laugh. Maybe would have hit them. Maybe both. 

But everything in the Institute is the palette of bureaucracy—white and beige and gray—and she can usually get from one place to another without having to screw her eyes shut and feel along the walls. The Archives are dim ( _but not dark, not dark_ ) and she can sit with her back to the lamp and watch her own shadow stretch across the wall, half expecting it to raise a clawed hand when she reaches up to rub her eyes.

The blood whispers. Daisy breathes, and she listens to the recorder and the sound of Jon murmuring behind her. 

Not long after they emerge, when Daisy’s still sleeping down in the Archives on a tiny cot that smells like Basira, Jon comes into the office—tea in one hand, coffee in the other—wearing a garishly-patterned sweater, loud and neon bright. Daisy takes one look at him and pain spikes into her skull. She hisses through her nose, shuts her eyes on instinct. The dark behind her eyelids never belonged to the Buried. She would close her eyes in the coffin, sometimes, just to have a darkness she chose.

And then the earth would shift and press so close than she couldn’t move her eyelids at all, so close she could feel the grit against her eyes, behind her eyes, _inside_ her—

“Oh,” Jon says when she curls inward. “Oh, I’m—I’m sorry, the jumper, I didn’t think—”

Daisy huffs. “Just Knew about this, did you?”

“I didn’t, actually. I can still observe my surroundings like a human being. Should I—I mean, would you be—” He stops, sighs in a heavy way that makes shame curl in her gut for causing it. “I think you might be more comfortable if I changed.”

“Don’t,” she says immediately. He shouldn’t have to, he’s done enough, and she didn’t deserve any of it. It isn’t like she’s going to break. “Just surprised me. I’m fine.”

“Mm.”

No point lying to the Archivist, she supposes.

But he doesn’t take it off, just walks past her and sits at his desk, and she’s so grateful it makes her sick.

“Some sensitivity left over from the coffin, I assume,” he says carefully.

“Some of it, yeah.”

She perches on the edge of the desk, shoulders hunched, hands gripping the edge under her thighs. Used to be she would leave gouges in the wood. Now her hands just ache from it. 

Jon doesn’t push. Only listens.

“Some of it’s from...before. From the blood. Didn’t notice until we got out, not much to see down there. Made me colorblind, I guess, like a…” She almost laughs, but chokes on it. She feels like she’s choking a lot these days. “Like a dog.”

“Dogs are actually red-green colorblind, interestingly. True achromatopsia is quite rare—”

“Sims,” Daisy says gently. He stops short.

“R-right, sorry. Um, is it better now? Without the—the blood?”

He forgets himself and she feels the question sink into her skin. Relaxes into it. It’s easier, sometimes, not to have a choice.

“I can see in technicolor again, if that’s what you mean. But it hurts if they’re too bright, or I’m not expecting them. Not used to them. I don’t know how long it’s been since…” She doesn’t want to tell him it wasn’t _achromatopsia_ , that it was only ever red, only ever rage and bloodstains. “Spending eight months in a lightless abyss didn’t help either, though.” It doesn’t come off as light as she intends.

“No, I imagine not,” he murmurs. He sounds tired, the guilt familiar in his mouth and that isn’t what she meant, but she doesn’t know how to take it back.

She turns to him. Looks deliberately at his face, dark and scarred and lined too young. Her head still throbs a bit, but looking at him is easy. She manages something like a smile, doesn’t show her teeth.

“That for me?” She asks, pointing at the coffee.

He relaxes, as much as she’s ever seen Jon relax. Half a year ago, she would have laughed to think the Archivist might ever feel safe in her presence. That anyone might. Now there’s just the strange sensation of something pushing at her ribcage, of warmth branching through her like roots. 

“Cream and three sugars,” he says, turning back to his notes. “I won’t be held responsible when it rots your teeth.”

She hums and wraps her hands around the warm mug.

Safe.

-

Basira can’t stand to be in the same room with her.

She thinks Daisy can’t see it, but Basira isn’t exactly subtle. She doesn’t snap like she does at Jon. She makes sure Daisy’s eating and doing her physical therapy. But she won’t look at her. She moves like any loud noise will send Daisy spiralling, sometimes meets Jon’s gaze with a question before making her excuses and leaving again. Her eyes slide off of Daisy like she’s not really there, like she’s still lost down in the dark.

Daisy can barely look at her either, but she _wants_ to. God, she wants to, even if it burns the eyes out of her head.

Daisy has enough pride, barely, not to follow her around like some wild animal too used to being fed from human hands. She doesn’t even blame Basira, not really. She knows she’s scared, weak, can barely stand without her atrophied limbs giving out on her. Unreliable. Just another burden among many, and the only one who seems willing to bear it is a man she’d almost killed. Nothing’s like it was before, why should this be the exception?

She’s almost resigned to it, to the hollow ache in her chest whenever Basira leaves the room and takes the light with her, when Basira apparently makes a decision. 

“We’re going to my flat,” she says. She’s talking about Daisy, but looking at Jon. 

“What? Why?” Jon looks up from his endless piles of notes and conspiracy theories, sounding like a man coming up for air after a long dive. 

“Because the Institute’s not exactly a five-star hotel. She needs a real shower and a real bed and to get some actual sleep somewhere that isn’t...this place.” Like she hadn’t been sleeping on that exact cot for months herself.

Jon blinks. Glances at Daisy. She sits on the floor behind his desk, back against the wall, and just shrugs. Lets them argue over her like she’s a child. 

“I—I thought it wasn’t safe outside the Institute.” He drags himself to his feet, but he’s so thin and stooped that it somehow makes him look smaller. Daisy realizes that he’s trying to protect her, trying to protect her from _Basira_. The thought is so backwards and wrong that she almost laughs.

A muscle ticks in Basira’s jaw, like she isn’t used to being questioned. When had that happened?

“It’s been quiet,” she bites out. “We’ll be fine.”

Jon looks down at her again, questioning, concerned. Basira doesn’t. 

But it’s different this time. Not avoidance, not fragile silence, but familiar unhurried expectation. Like she’s waiting for Daisy to back her up. It’s that more than anything else that makes Daisy say, “Sounds good to me.”

She almost balks before they even make it outside. The sunlight blinds her when she tries to follow Basira onto the street and she stumbles back into the cold, artificial light of the Institute. It’s Basira’s face, though, haloed by the too-bright sun, that nearly has her turning and walking back down to the Archives. Not quite anger, not quite disgust. Just broad, unsurprised disappointment. 

Daisy grits her teeth and pushes past her—or Basira lets her pass, Daisy probably couldn’t push over a toddler. She stands on the sidewalk, refusing to close her eyes against the light or the blue sky or the dozens of other colors that riot around her as people pass. Loads of people living their normal, ignorant lives. In the bowels of the Institute, sometimes it seems like the world’s already ended. The sun soaks into her skin and she trembles like it’s forcing the sunken cold up and out of her. 

She looks over her shoulder at Basira. “Coming?”

Basira relaxes like a fist unclenching and falls into step beside her.

-

A part of Daisy hoped it would be easy, after that. Hoped that with just the two of them whatever jagged edges had risen between them would smooth out and they would fit together again. They used to orient themselves in relation to the other, effortless, not having to speak to know instinctively where her partner needed her. 

She wonders if Basira had hoped so too, if that’s why she was so insistent on getting them out of the Institute. If she thought the place was the broken thing, and not the person.

It isn’t easy. 

The silence is still heavy, crowded. Basira still watches her like she’s waiting to catch her in a lie. Daisy feels anger rise hot in her throat, but traps it before it can show on her face, smothers it with guilt. She wants to fix this, but the only easy solution is the one thing she won’t do.

From the look of the place, Basira hasn’t been staying here for some time. There’s a fine layer of dust on everything that Daisy finds oddly comforting. A bit like going to ground in an old safehouse, warm and satisfied after a job. A part of her feels sick at the memory but she’s not in the business of turning down comfort these days. 

Most of the food in the fridge has gone off, so they order takeaway from the Thai place down the street Basira knows she loves. She doesn’t realize how hungry she is until she smells the curry and for a second she feels like herself again. 

Basira puts on some bad movie and they sit on her worn yellow couch and it's _almost_ right. Almost, except for the way Daisy’s legs ache underneath her when she tries to curl up in her usual spot. Except for the foot of space between them. Daisy dimly notices she’s cold. _You’re together_ , she chides herself. 

She spends most of the time glancing at Basira’s face, lit blue by the screen, and doesn’t remember the movie’s plot once the credits roll.

The shower _is_ nice. The water pressure is better than the sparse facility at the Institute. She dries with a soft towel, and she smells like Basira’s shampoo.

She hesitates in the doorway, wearing her own loose t-shirt and boxers. Basira had kept them. She’s relieved they don’t stink of blood or gunpowder. She towels her hair slowly, watching Basira where she sits on the bed, a book in her lap. Considering the space she’s left beside her.

Basira feels her eyes and looks up. “All right?”

“Sure,” Daisy lies. She doesn’t know how to explain she’s afraid. There shouldn’t be anything to be afraid of.

“Come on, then,” Basira says with a jerk of her chin. 

Daisy’s eyes fall closed in relief.

She settles next to Basira, wraps her arms around one of the extra pillows. Basira quirks an eyebrow at her.

“Sure you’re all right?” She asks slowly.

“Yeah. Just tired.” Basira doesn’t touch her. Daisy doesn’t reach out. She thinks about it. But she never had to think about it before, did she? Just did it. Like it was easy, like it was uncomplicated. She used to reach for Basira as naturally as breathing. Now she thinks about claws, about bruises and broken bones, and she digs her fingers deeper into the pillow.

She falls asleep to the sound of turning pages.

She dreams of Choke. She dreams of dirt and airless passages, of the crushing loneliness at the center of creation, of darkness so deep and black that light never even existed.

Daisy jerks awake and it’s still black, she’s down in the dark and she can’t move, she can’t breathe, she’s in the coffin and she never left and she’s alone, alone in the dark—

The blood roars in her ears, still distant but closer, closer than it’s been since Jon pulled her out. Before the coffin fear was useless, prey-feeling, and the Hunt turned it to anger, fed the anger into her muscles to let her run faster, strike harder. In the near-perfect dark the fear lances through her like an electric current and the blood tries to press it back. It hisses bargains in the back of her mind, whispers _weak, pathetic, trembling rabbit_ and wouldn’t she like to be strong again, wouldn’t she like to tear the throat from anything that dared make her afraid?

A thought struggles through the haze of panic and adrenaline: the blood couldn’t reach her in the coffin. She’s out, she’s out, and that gives her enough strength to roll out of the bed. She can’t quite get her shaking legs under her and half-crawls to the bathroom. She flails at the light switch, closes the door so as not to wake Basira, hopefully closed it quietly but it’s hard to tell over the rushing in her ears. The light burns into her, the bathroom is white, white, white. She fixes her eyes on the golden sunflowers on the shower curtain. 

Her instinct screams _danger_ and old habit spits _back against the wall, eyes on the door_. She folds herself into the bottom of the tub, head almost between her knees, and tries to slow her racing heart.

The pulse of the Hunt doesn’t abate. Her jaw _aches_. Her teeth feel too big for her mouth. She sinks them deep into the base of her thumb and her mouth fills with copper. It doesn’t help, if anything the blood roars louder, angry now, but she doesn’t let go. Keeps her teeth anchored in her own flesh.

She sees red run down her arm and drip between her feet. Feels the edge of a hysterical laugh in her throat. She reaches down with her other hand, trails her fingers through the drops, admires the way it smears on her skin.

“Daisy?” Basira opens the door, hair loose and sleep-mussed, and Daisy shrinks against the wall, growls a warning that stops Basira dead.

Basira looks at her and is afraid. 

All at once, the Hunt recedes. 

Daisy gasps and pulls her hand from her bloodied mouth. She can feel the violent shakes of an adrenaline crash coming and clenches her fists against them, pain stabbing up her injured arm. “I’m sorry,” she says between gulps of air. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Basira hangs in the doorway for an endless moment before lowering herself to her knees beside the tub. She gently pulls Daisy’s torn hand towards her, looks at the wound instead of Daisy’s blood-streaked face.

“Why?” she asks.

Daisy has to take a few more ragged breaths before she finds the words. “Didn’t—didn’t hurt anyone else,” she pants.

Basira looks up and the expression on her face makes Daisy a liar.

“I’m sorry,” she says again.

Basira swallows, tries for a reassuring smile and comes up short. 

She lets Basira clean and bandage her hand. Earlier all she’d wanted was for Basira to touch her, but her skin feels slick with poison and now she just wants to pull away, to keep it from burning into Basira’s palms. Almost, she wishes for the darkness, so neither of them would have to see her tears. 

Basira leaves the bathroom light on and leads Daisy back to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can come say hi on tumblr [here!](https://corpsesoldier.tumblr.com)


	2. blue

“I can’t believe you listen to this.”

Daisy jumps, head snapping toward the door, her useless scarecrow limbs tensed for a fight. 

“Oh, shit,” Melanie says. She gestures that she comes in peace, one hand clutching a paper bag like an olive branch, showing off the logo of a bakery printed on it. “Sorry. Guess you didn’t hear me come in.”

She raises her eyebrows at Daisy’s phone, which is playing an old episode of _What The Ghost?_ at maximum volume. Which admittedly isn’t very loud, but the acoustics in the break room—like in the rest of the Archives—are weird and Melanie did actually manage to sneak up on her. Her senses aren’t as keen as they used to be. 

For a moment it’s just Georgie Barker speaking into the silence ( _—named the most haunted village in England by Guinness World Records—_ ) until Daisy realizes Melanie’s waiting for her to say something. By the time she has the thought, Melanie’s decided to forge ahead without her. 

She drops her bag on the table and reaches over to Daisy’s phone herself, cutting off Georgie’s description of some screaming ghost still impaled on the tree where he met his gruesome end.

“Not fed up with spooky stories yet?” Melanie scoffs.

It’s a bizarre relief when she doesn’t open with “are you okay?” and Daisy grabs at the offer of a normal conversation with both hands.

“Just the real ones,” she replies. 

“Oh, don’t let Georgie hear you say that.” She turns to pour herself a cup of the terrible break room coffee that Daisy suspects she actually likes and then stops mid-stride. “Christ, please tell me you haven’t listened to the episodes with me in them.”

Daisy grins. “I liked the one with the headless horseman that rides himself off a cliff.”

Melanie tips her head back and groans. “You’ve gone back _that_ far?”

“I like the noise. It’s quiet down here.” Daisy shrugs. “Besides, Georgie’s funny.”

“ _Definitely_ don’t let her hear you say that.” She returns to the little table with her coffee, black, and reaches into the bag. 

She drops a muffin in front of Daisy.

“Uh. What’s this?”

“Seems pretty obvious to me,” Melanie says, pulling out a Danish for herself.

Daisy looks down at the muffin like it might bite her. It’s even blueberry. 

“Is it not the right kind?” Melanie asks through a mouthful of pastry. “I asked Basira.”

Daisy feels a little prick of shame at the thought, flexes her still-healing hand inside the bandage. “No, it is. Just. You didn’t have to.”

Melanie shrugs. “Thought you could use a pick-me-up.”

Daisy isn’t sure if she’s grateful or angry or just tired. Everything gets muddled now, like she feels everything at once to make up for lost time. She knows how to feed herself. Can still take care of herself. Doesn’t need everyone in the Archives watching after her like she’ll crumble into sand the moment they look away. Least of all Melanie. There doesn’t seem to be much she can do about Basira, but she doesn’t need anyone else looking at her like a poorly-mended porcelain doll.

“Jesus, Daisy, it’s just a muffin. If you don’t want it, I’ll eat it.” 

The edge of frustration in Melanie’s voice probably shouldn’t be reassuring, but it jolts her thoughts out of that familiar rut. She takes the muffin. Melanie rolls her eyes.

It’s actually really good.

“So, is this what you do now? Hide out in the break room?” There’s a sardonic slant to Melanie’s mouth that softens the words a bit. Daisy thinks it might almost be concern. 

“I’m not _hiding_ ,” she says.

“You sure? Not even a little?”

Daisy grimaces and takes another bite of her muffin. What else is she supposed to be doing? She’d only ever been built for one thing. And it’s not like she can go back to handling Elias’ dirty work even if she wanted to. There’s a thrum against her eardrums at the thought, which she carefully ignores.

“Basira’s off again.” Didn’t tell Daisy where. “Don’t have much else to do.”

Waiting doesn’t feel much different from hiding, not that she’d admit it. She doesn’t even know what she’s waiting for. She’s given up on some magical _click_ that will set the world right again. Maybe she’s just straining her ears for the sound of the other shoe dropping.

Melanie chews on her lip. “You don’t—” She stops, looks away, her eyes falling to the neutral ground of the stained table top. When she starts again, it’s like she’s dragging barbed wire up from her lungs. “You don’t have to do this alone, you know.”

That isn’t what Daisy expected.

“I’m not,” she says, her voice thin. She knows what alone feels like. It’s dark and dirt and the distant sound of wailing song and knowing you’ll never see her, never see _anyone_ ever again. Alone was too-close-I-cannot-breathe. This isn’t that. This is empty space and silence and a cold weight in her chest. Like the stone had taken root inside her. Dead weight.

“I’m not alone,” she tries again. Gestures at Melanie. Does she smile? It feels wrong on her face.

Melanie sighs explosively. “Okay, first of all, you know that’s not what I meant. And second, I literally just got here and you _were_ in here alone. So shut up.”

A laugh shudders up out of Daisy’s chest. “I’m fine.”

“No more panic attacks?” Daisy crosses her arms, cuts her eyes away, and Melanie hums, unsurprised. “You could talk to someone. It...it helps.”

“Not so good at talking.” She digs her fingers into her bicep. “What would I even say? I’m messed up because I’m a—a murderer?” The word sticks in her throat, but it’s only the truth.

“Well,” Melanie hesitates. “No. Probably not that.”

“Probably not.”

“What about—” Daisy braces for her to say Basira. If she could talk to Basira, they wouldn’t be having this conversation. “—Jon?”

The thought of Jonathan Sims playing therapist shocks another little laugh out of her. 

“I’m serious!” Melanie insists.

“He’s busy. Don’t want to bother him.” The man’s running himself ragged already. She swears there’s more gray in his hair every day. Daisy can handle herself.

She clenches her bandaged hand and an ache spreads up her wrist. _Or,_ an ugly voice whispers, _you think he wouldn’t be able to stop you._

“Why is everyone here so goddamn stubborn?” Melanie sighs, runs exasperated fingers through her hair. “Look. He saved me too, okay? Sometimes I fucking _hate_ him for it. But he...tries. He’d listen.”

And he would listen, she knows. She just isn’t sure what she could say. Lately she feels like she’s holding tight to a live grenade and she doesn’t want Jon to throw himself on top of it.

But she’s so tired of silence.

“Guess I could see if he has paperwork needs filing,” Daisy says, only half-joking. “Is that my job now? What does an archival assistant even do?”

“Mostly try not to get kill—” Melanie’s smile, probably from sensing she’d won, slides off her face in an instant. “Wait. What do you mean, _your job?_ ”

“I signed on. Assistant. Same as you.”

Melanie takes a furious, shuddering breath, her hands clenching and unclenching on the tabletop. “Why would you do that?”

Daisy shrinks from the iron in her voice like a rabbit in the shadow of a hawk. Curses herself for it. 

“Why not?” She says, trying to keep her voice light.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Melanie pushes herself back from the table and rocks to her feet. 

She can see the muscles in Melanie’s neck pull taut. The air tastes like the moment right before a fight—the bloody kind, the kind you might not walk away from—and it looks different from the other side.

“You know what this place is!” She’s almost shouting now and Daisy holds herself very still. Instinct. Don’t run, and they won’t chase you. “You know what it does to people. It’s _evil_ and you just—just signed your soul away to pick up part time at an office job?”

“Full time.” Daisy forces the words out, her throat tight. “With benefits.” A part of her thinks, _Basira would laugh_. 

Melanie doesn’t laugh. She slams her fists into the table with a wordless shout.

The first time she saw Melanie after climbing out of the coffin, the smell of blood had been so thick around her that Daisy had physically recoiled, almost bolted like prey. Except it hadn’t been fear. No, she’d caught the scent of blood and her mouth watered, her heart raced. The thought makes her want to throw up. She’d thought Melanie was red, too, like she is, a deep-down stain you can’t wash out. Maybe not exactly the same shade, but red all the same. 

But the blood is old and dry on her now. Flaking off. Daisy thinks the Melanie underneath is blue. A brighter blue than the fading dye in her hair, a jagged, electric blue. More fear than sorrow. 

“I can’t believe this. You had a _choice_ and you—” She turns her back on Daisy with a strangled cry, paces away from her. Daisy releases her held breath.

“Where else would I go?” Daisy whispers.

“Anywhere! _Literally_ anywhere! Anywhere’s better than—than being trapped here.”

Daisy clenches her jaw. Swallows. Tastes dirt in her mouth. Feels teeth at her throat. _What would you know,_ she almost says, _about being trapped?_ She just manages to bite back the words. 

Melanie doesn’t turn around. Her hands are balled into fists at her sides, shaking. Daisy hears the moment her angry pants slide into a breathing exercise. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

“I’m...sorry,” Melanie says through clenched teeth. “I have to go.”

She manages not to slam the door behind her. Daisy’s muscles ache with adrenaline-strain. She puts her head down, arms wrapped around herself, and breathes in the familiar stink of fear and dried blood. 

-

Basira comes to find her. Daisy doesn’t know how much later it is. She isn’t very good at estimating time anymore. Eight months with no sun will do that to a person.

She hasn’t moved from the break room. After Melanie, she isn’t eager to see anyone else, so she just curled up stubbornly on the old, deflated couch. She worried the silence would make it harder to ignore the hum of the blood, but instead it was like a physical weight against her eardrums. Heavy, grounding, smothering. So long as the lights were on, she found she could deal with the quiet.

“Daisy?”

She lifts her head from her knees, blinks spots from her eyes. Basira’s standing in the doorway. Today her headscarf is a deep ocean blue. Daisy takes note, like it’s important somehow. From the drawn look on her face, Daisy thinks she must have called her name a few times before she responded. The quiet had been very loud.

“Back already?” She doesn’t fight the little rush of warmth that runs through her. Basira came to find her. 

This response doesn’t reassure Basira, apparently. She approaches slowly, hands in plain sight. Daisy wonders if she’s thinking of bathtubs and blood and bared teeth. She tucks her bandaged hand against her chest.

“Have you been in here all day?” Basira sits beside her on the couch, almost close enough to touch. Almost.

“Guess so.” Judging by the ache in her spine and her hips, she’s been in just this position for a couple of hours at least.

Basira’s jaw ticks. A thin smile pulls at Daisy’s mouth. She can practically hear her thoughts. _Useless_.

But Basira doesn’t say it. Just sighs and leans back into the cushions, rests her head on the back of the couch. Still won’t tell any of them who her mysterious source is. Daisy doesn’t press her, but she can think of only one person who knows too much and makes Basira look this tired.

She remembers being able to help. Remembers being able to make Basira smile. How? A joke? An offer (only half a joke, even at her best) to beat someone up? Sometimes just being near, just her hands or her mouth against Basira’s skin. 

Almost close enough.

“Find any new leads?” 

Coward. 

Basira rolls forward again and rubs her eyes. “Yeah, actually. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Daisy sits up straighter at the familiar tone of her voice. A plan to make. A job to do.

“The Dark’s trying for a ritual. The People’s Church.”

“Rayner’s people?” Daisy wrinkles her nose. “Thought we took care of them.”

“I thought so, too, but apparently they’ve still got plans. They’re regrouping in Ny-Ålesund.”

Just the thought of all that snow and ice, reflecting the too-white sunlight, makes her head hurt. “And you have to stop it.”

She turns, catches Daisy’s eye. “We do. Yeah.”

Daisy’s breath quickens. She knew this conversation was coming eventually. “Basira…”

“We don’t know what we’ll be up against. Jon’s got his spooky new powers, but I don’t want to rely on him. I could really use your help.”

Daisy grits her teeth. Traces their blunt edges with her tongue. She wants to help. Of course she wants to help. Of course she would rather go with them, keep an eye on them, Basira and Jon both. She can feel the pull. She could protect them, keep them safe, bring them home again.

That’s how it started the first time, too.

“Basira,” she tries again, voice strangled. “I can’t.”

Basira cuts her gaze away and it splits Daisy open. “‘Course not,” she says. “Shouldn’t have asked.” 

Something closes behind her eyes. Some wall she’d built these last desperate months. Daisy hadn’t even noticed it come down, however briefly—she isn’t used to it being there at all. She fists her hands in the fabric of her jeans. 

“It’s not that I don’t _want_ to.” There’s a pleading edge to her voice, pathetic, but she wants Basira to look at her again.

She doesn’t.

“Oh, no?” Basira snorts. Anger flickers in Daisy’s gut. Like Daisy would choose _this_ , if there was any other option she could live with. 

“No. I do want to. Bad.” She swallows. Tries to find the heavy quiet, but her heart is beating too loud. “That’s the problem.”

“Why does it have to be a _problem_ , Daisy? You managed before. You were fine! We were—we were fine.” Basira folds her hands together, clenches them so tightly her knuckles stand out pale against her brown skin.

She blinks. Basira can’t believe that, can she? “We really weren’t,” she says.

“God damn it, Daisy! I need an ally here. I don’t know what’s going on with Jon. I don’t trust him. Whatever you’re scared of, we’ll figure it out. We always have. I need my _partner_. Not just one more thing to worry about.”

Daisy launches herself off the couch, puts her back to Basira. Suddenly doesn’t want to look at her. Doesn’t want to be looked at. She walks toward the door, stops, turns to pace like a tiger in a cage. Trapped.

“Daisy…”

No, no, Daisy doesn’t want to _worry_ her.

“So which is it?” She spits.

“What?”

“You say you don’t trust Jon and his spooky powers. Because of the coma. Because he’s a monster now. But it’s fine if _I’m_ a monster so long as I’m your monster?”

She keeps her voice soft and it just makes Basira angrier. Daisy’s afraid if she opens her mouth to shout that it’ll come out a snarl.

“That isn’t what I meant—”

“So which is it, Basira? Should we be good or useful?”

She stops and snaps her eyes to Basira like she’s throwing a knife. Refuses to flinch from her burning eyes and the hard line of her mouth.

“Why can’t you be both?” Basira says. Perfectly level. Perfectly still.

Why can’t she be _both?_

Because the Unknowing took everything she thought she understood and turned it inside-out. It took the last shred of herself she had left—there was no _self_ within the dance—and the blood filled her up like an empty bowl, overflowing, spilling violence.

Because she remembers being powerful and unafraid and so very hungry. Because if she opens that door again, the hunger will swallow her up. It will sever the ropes keeping her bound to the few things that still matter. She knows she won’t be able to follow those broken threads back to herself a second time.

“Because it doesn’t work like that,” she says. 

“No. Guess not.” Basira stands, brushes past her close enough that Daisy can smell her perfume. It makes her chest ache. “It’s fine. You stay here. I’ll figure it out.”

Her hand twitches at her side, but Basira is past her, through the door, gone. And Daisy’s left in the silent break room, sick and trembling, for the second time. She imagines kicking over the table, putting her fist through the wall, screaming until Basira comes running back to check on her, face tight with _worry_. Imagines going after her, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her and making her understand.

She doesn’t do anything. Just stands there, helpless, searching for the quiet and coming up with a shrieking tangle of thoughts like a handful of red roots. 

“Fuck this,” she decides.

-

She finds Jon sitting on the floor of his office, eyes closed, a few dozen tapes spread out around him like the aftermath of an explosion. She drops down next to him and presses her back to his. He startles at the touch, then leans into her. 

“Hello, Daisy,” he sighs. “Didn’t hear you come in.”

“You know, meditating over a tape recorder shrine isn’t the best way to disprove the whole creepy new archivist thing.”

She feels Jon’s laugh more than she hears it. “No, I suppose not.”

Daisy reaches back and snags the sleeve of Jon’s sweater, worries the fabric between thumb and forefinger. He’s been wearing neutral colors since his abomination of an outfit almost blinded her. She’s noticed. 

“So, what, are you praying or something? To your eyeball god?”

“No! No, I’m...trying to see if any statements call to me. If there’s anything information it thinks I should have.”

“Definitely not praying, though.”

“I would prefer not to think of it as such.” He sounds tired. More than usual, anyway. He sighs and tips his head back onto Daisy’s shoulder.

“Long day?” She knows the feeling.

“When isn’t it?” Another shaking laugh. “Did you speak to Basira? She mentioned asking you about Ny-Ålesund.”

A little twist of jealousy in her gut. Of course she told Jon first. “Yeah. Didn’t go well.”

Jon pulls his sleeve out of Daisy’s grasp and she lets him go, moves to tuck her hands into her lap, but before she can pull away she feels his fingers lace with hers. After a moment, he says, “I’m sorry.” 

“Yeah,” she rasps, blinking hard. She relaxes into him, runs her thumb over the ugly scar seared into his skin. Battered and fragile and still enough compassion left for her. “Thanks.”

It’s easy to find the quiet again, there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey I took forever to update this huh? if you're reading this, thanks for joining me again on the "pining for daisy and basira" train.
> 
> you can come say hi on tumblr [here!](https://corpsesoldier.tumblr.com)


	3. gray

A couple weeks later and their bags are packed with cold weather clothes, their eyes shadowed and determined.

“Be careful,” Jon says, his hand on Daisy’s arm.

Basira watches her, eyes an inexorable demand. “Keep them safe.”

Daisy nods. “Come back.” She hates the way her voice sounds. Plaintive. Helpless.

Basira softens a little. “We will,” she promises.

-

The Archives are suddenly very empty. Melanie spends as little time as possible in the Institute, not that Daisy blames her. And with Jon and Basira gone…

Well, the silence starts to weigh on her.

Daisy and Martin aren’t friends. She doesn’t know him very well, really. Not beyond the things Jon’s mentioned, stammering and embarrassed, his eyes lit with a pain she recognizes. And yet Daisy keeps finding herself tucked away in a corner of Martin’s office, listening to the _taptaptap_ of his fingers on the keyboard. Just for somewhere to be. For anything to focus on beyond the endless _what ifs_ her mind keeps supplying her with. 

She knows he’s worried, too. She can see it in the thin line of his mouth, the set of his shoulders, the way he falls still with distant eyes. Thinking those same _what ifs_.

Usually they’re content to sit in silence. Not like there’s much either of them can say. But sometimes—

“Do you think they’re all right?”

Daisy sighs. “I don’t know, Martin.”

“Yeah, but—I mean, do you _think_ they are?”

“Sure,” she says. “Yeah. Probably still on the boat.”

“Right.”

She can tell there’s more coming. A storm brewing in small movements. She’s gotten used to the tension, the anger—it wraps them all like stiff wire, bound together, cutting them when they try to move. But she waits for the explosion and it doesn’t come, just curdles in the cool basement air until she can barely breathe.

 _”What?”_ she finally snaps.

“Why didn’t you go with them?” he fires back, eyes hard, aim true.

She takes a sharp breath. “Too dangerous.”

Martin makes a choked noise of outrage. “Dangerous. Right. But it’s fine if they go off without backup so long as _you’re_ safe here—”

Daisy cuts him off with a snarl. Her blunt, ragged nails dig into the palm of her hand. “Not for _me_. For them.”

She can see he doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know how to make him, make anyone, understand. She could just leave, find somewhere quiet to hide until the encroaching panic outweighs her pride. She always comes slinking back. But she doesn’t owe him anything, a roiling, bitter part of her insists, this man she barely knows.

But that isn’t true. She won’t ever stop owing. And they want the same thing.

God, she just wants them to be safe.

Martin watches her, expectant, and she sighs through her teeth. “The way I was, before. If I slip even a little, if I get too angry—if I try to _fight_ —” Her breath comes harsh, but the quiet is there in a heavy corner of her mind and she holds it tight. “Wouldn’t be able to control it. It’d be so much worse. I—I could hurt them.”

Daisy doesn’t want to hurt anyone. She can’t take it back, but she can make sure it doesn’t happen again. And the thought of hurting Jon or Basira, of being so far gone she would hurt them and not even know, not _care_ , it makes her feel like she can’t breathe, like her chest might collapse, like—

“So because something bad _might_ happen, you’re just going to do nothing?” Martin says, exasperated, disgusted, his tone sharp enough to draw blood. But all she feels is surprise.

She blinks. “What?”

“You’re just going to sit and do nothing. And if something does go wrong, well, that’s not your fault, right? You’d rather abandon them than risk it.”

Daisy freezes. There’s a pulse thrumming in her ears, but it isn’t the Hunt. It’s her own heartbeat, sick and fast and frightened because—

“ _I_ abandoned them?” she demands, trying to press it back. “No one sees you for weeks, Jon worries himself sick over you, we have no idea what kind of shit you and Lukas are up to, and _I’m_ the one who abandoned them?”

Martin’s face goes perfectly blank. For an instant it’s like he’s carved from stone, still and gray and lifeless. Daisy doesn’t know if he’s always been gray, but he certainly is now. Pale from lack of sun, washed out by the glow of his monitor, so flat and colorless that he almost disappears against the concrete walls. Usually he’s gray like smoke, like mist, something fading and impossible to catch. But just now, she catches a glimpse of iron.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” The fire is gone from his voice now, soft and cold as ashes.

“Neither do you,” she spits, heart still racing.

“At least I know I’m doing something. At least I’m not just going to sit back and watch my friends die.”

“I can’t help.” It comes out like a plea. She doesn’t know how to touch anything without breaking it, never learned how to sheath her claws. Before the coffin, everything is a smear of motion and breath and blood, always running, always hunting. Safer to be still.

Martin scoffs. His eyes slide off her like she isn’t worth his time. “Whatever,” he says. “Just don’t pretend you’re doing it for their sake.”

Daisy stands like an elastic band snapping. Martin doesn’t flinch. He isn’t afraid of her. She doesn’t know how to feel about that.

She wrenches the door open, but before she can make her escape, Martin calls after her, “You don’t just get to stop hurting people and call yourself a good person. You have to _do something_ about it.”

Daisy slams the door behind her and is gone.

-

They come back safe. Shaken, but safe. 

Daisy wants to curl around them, make sure they’re unharmed, keep them from leaving again. But there’s a wariness about them that warns her off. Basira’s working herself up into some kind of fury. It pours off of her like heat.

Daisy could catch her arm. Ask what happened. Find a way to help. But she doesn’t. 

She does nothing. Basira brushes past her.

She turns to Jon, searching for some explanation. The circles under his eyes are deeper than she’s ever seen them. He sighs, takes her hand in his and pulls her toward his office. And he fills her in on the whole pointless mess.

-

Daisy never thought she’d be grateful for the terrible break room couch, but she is, for all its flattened cushions and sharp springs. It’s the only place she feels halfway normal.

She’s stretched out across it, her head pillowed on Jon’s lap, one of his hands idly threaded into her hair. He’d come prepared with a stack of notes to go through and he’d made a valiant effort, but Daisy thinks he might have fallen asleep. His breathing is slow, his other hand tucked up under his jaw, propping him up. 

She smiles. It’s good to see him get some rest.

He’s gotten stronger recently. His hands don’t shake so much, and he looks less pale and bruised every day. 

Her thumb traces the too-sharp jut of her hip bone. She doesn’t think about what it means, that Jon’s waxing as she wanes. Doesn’t want to think about secrets. About time slipping through her fingers like sand.

She isn’t in any place to judge. Instead she lets herself be happy for him. He came up out of the dirt a twining green thing, rooted deep, a survivor. He’d survived her, hadn’t he? Not many people had.

Daisy’s on the edge of drifting off herself when the door opens and there’s Basira, book in her hand, dressed in soft, loose clothes that make Daisy ache. It must be late. It’s hard to keep a schedule when you hardly ever go outside.

Basira stops dead when she sees them, one hand still on the doorknob. Daisy puts a finger to her lips, rolling her eyes pointedly toward Jon. Basira hesitates. Then something shifts in her face and she steps inside, closing the door gently behind her. Daisy tries not to let her surprise show.

Basira lightly whacks Daisy’s socked feet with her book and she pulls her legs back on instinct. Basira settles herself against the arm of the couch, casual as anything, and Daisy freezes, afraid to shatter whatever spun-glass moment they’re suspended in. Until Basira glances over, eyebrows raised.

She feels like she hasn’t touched Basira in years. Sometimes Daisy’s a stranger in her own body. She looks at her hands—weak, trembling things—like they don’t belong to her. She worries they don’t remember what Basira’s skin feels like. And this—this won’t help that. But it’s something, it’s something.

Basira is looking at her.

Daisy drapes her legs over Basira’s lap. Basira opens her book. Jon starts to snore, very softly.

Daisy presses her eyes shut, inexpressibly grateful for this terrible couch.

-

Things find a way to fall apart.

The revelation about Jon’s new diet doesn’t surprise Daisy. There were signs she’s intimately familiar with, which she chose to ignore. It was easier that way. She knows for a fact it was easier, because once it’s out in the open the wedges driven into their fractured little army only gape wider.

Daisy isn’t happy about it. She knows it’s monstrous, something she would have killed for without batting an eye, before. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? Daisy’s done much, much worse. And Daisy’s the only one who knows what it’s like to be hungry.

(Maybe there’s a little part of Daisy that’s angry. Maybe there’s a part that’s jealous. To see him bloom while Daisy is—while she’s—)

Things hold steady for a while. All of them know the score. They behave. But when Jon walks into the Archives one day with his back straight and his color high, Daisy knows what it means. Can scent it on the air almost. He’s been pale and shaky for weeks. He’s been fighting. But today he looks well-fed.

“Jon,” she says warningly when he passes her on the way to his desk. He pulls up short and she doesn’t imagine the guilty hunch of his shoulders. Far be it from Daisy to cast the first stone. But she knows someone who will.

Daisy sighs. “I thought you were managing.”

He deflates. “I—I was.”

“You need to keep managing. It’s dangerous.”

She can see Jon bristle, can practically see the thought written across his face— _oh, coming from you_ —before she stops him.

“Not what I meant. Dangerous for you.” That’s callous, probably. She knows what having a statement dragged out of you feels like, and she knows what it’s like to have something that’s all eyes dig around in your nightmares. She didn’t necessarily wish it on anyone, but that’s not her concern. Jon is. And Jon’s used up all his second chances.

He curls inwards, like he’s trying to swallow himself whole. “I know,” he says heavily. “I’m trying. I am. It’s just—it gets hard to think clearly. It’s difficult to remember why I shouldn’t.”

Daisy’s smile is softer than she intends, too much like a confession. “I know.”

She doesn’t always dream of the coffin. Sometimes she dreams of the chase. Running down something small and frightened in the cool night air, everything illuminated by a crimson moon. In those dreams her limbs are lean and strong again. Her blood runs hot in her veins. Purpose drums through her. She knows what she is and what she must do, knows that she’s strong enough and fast enough to do it.

She wakes up from those dreams with the taste of copper in her mouth. They aren’t nightmares. The nausea and fear only come after she’s awake.

Jon’s looks away. “Of course. I’m sor—”

“Don’t. Just saying I understand. But Jon, you need to be carefu—”

Basira throws open the door like Daisy’s warning summoned her. Her anger pours in after her like a wave. Daisy and Jon both flinch from the noise, from the expression on her face. The look of someone come to perform an unpleasant, necessary task.

“I warned you, Jon,” she says, evenly. “I said no more.”

She marches toward him, closing the distance. Doesn’t seem to notice Daisy at all. And—Christ, Basira—there’s a gun in her hand—

The moment stretches. Jon shrinks away from Basira; he hasn’t seen it yet. Basira’s finger isn’t on the trigger, too careful for that, but Daisy has never known her to make idle threats. 

She wishes she could say she moves on instinct. But if she ever had any instincts toward protection, they’d been drowned out a long time ago. If anything, long habit tries to pull her to Basira’s side— _isn’t this what they do_ , her muscles urge, _kill monsters?_

She looks at Jon’s frightened face. Can hear the gunshot in her mind. Knows precisely what he’ll look like lying on the floor with a hole in his head, how the fear will linger in his eyes. And she decides to do something about it.

She steps between them. There’s still enough of her left to hide him from view. She knows as she does it that she’ll regret it. Knows from the flicker of shock in Basira’s eyes that calcifies into betrayal. And she knows it’s the right choice.

“Basira, stop.”

Basira pulls up short, shaking with fury. “Move, Daisy.”

“No. We aren’t doing this.”

“You _know_ what he’s doing, what he _is_. I won’t let him keep hurting people. Now _move_.” 

Basira crackles like a storm. Daisy can feel it against her skin. She’s never seen Basira like this before. She half-expects to smell blood, to see her eyes flash yellow. But Basira’s anger is cold and measured and human. She tries to push past, but Daisy retreats, putting her arm back to keep Jon squarely behind her. She feels him grab onto the back of her shirt, onto her arm, fingers squeezing hard enough to bruise.

“How—” Jon starts before Daisy can tell him to shut up. “How could you even know?”

Basira sneers at him over Daisy’s shoulder. “You’re not that subtle. You mope around for days like you’ve been sent to bed without dinner, and today you come in practically chipper? Melanie knew the moment she saw you.”

“Jon,” Daisy says softly. “Be quiet.”

She feels strangely hollow. There’s no pounding blood, no crushing fear. Just a decision and its consequences stretched out before her like a long, empty road.

Basira searches her face, jaw tight, as though she can’t fully understand what she’s seeing. “Don’t look at me like I’m crazy,” she spits.

The scene splits in Daisy’s mind. Haven’t they been here before? Jon, frightened and clutching at her. Basira, implacable. A choice sucking at her heels like quicksand, both options bad, both terrifying whether she wants to admit it or not. Their words echo in Daisy’s ears. A trick mirror reflecting back at her. She doesn’t know the steps of this dance in reverse.

“I won’t let you do this, Basira.” Her own voice sounds very far away. “Not this. Not him.”

Basira shakes her head, disbelieving. The threat of violence hangs thick around them. Familiar. Almost comforting. Daisy feels more solid against it. She knows what she has to do. Finds she’s strong enough to do it.

It still hurts, when Basira snarls at her, when she turns her back and stalks out of the room. Daisy knew it would. The room is darker for her absence, the silence that much louder.

And then, Jon. “Daisy, I—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for—”

Daisy wrenches her arm out of his grip and shoves him roughly away from her. He hits the wall with a gasp. Even then, he isn’t afraid of her, just looks up at her with his round, sad eyes, so very _sorry_.

“Shut up. Stay here.” It feels like there’s something lodged in her throat. “Lock the door,” she adds, before she steps into the hallway after Basira.

-

She finds Basira in the storage room she’s commandeered as an office. She’s wearing a track in the little floorspace she’s cleared among the boxes. The gun’s on her tiny desk wedged in the corner, forgotten.

Basira rounds on her when she opens the door. “What the fuck was that?”

“Basira.”

“You should have backed me up in there. You were right. He’s a monster, him and Elias both.” She huffs a breath. “I shouldn’t have stopped you.”

Daisy tenses. Thinks of hands reaching in the dark. “You don’t think that.”

Basira narrows her eyes. “He’s hurting people, Daisy.”

“Not saying he isn’t. But you don’t understand. He’s trying.”

“That isn’t good enough. _You’re_ managing.”

“You act like it’s easy,” Daisy mutters. She wants to spread her arms, to make Basira really look at her. There’s a cost, even one Daisy’s willing to pay. But she knows Basira wouldn’t see.

“So, what? We’re just supposed to let him do whatever he wants?” 

“No. And you know that. But I’m not just going let you kill our friend.” 

Basira scoffs, crosses her arms.

Daisy clenches her jaw. “ _Our_ friend. Look around, Basira.” She gestures at the cramped, little room. “We’re all that’s left.”

The empty space is a physical presence in the room with them. Tim, dead. Martin, gone. Melanie’s trying desperately to claw her way out. They’re not going to survive this on their own. 

And she can feel Basira getting further away every second.

“So what then?” Basira asks. 

“He needs our help,” Daisy says, almost pleading. 

“ _Everyone_ needs my help, Daisy! _I_ needed my partner in there,” she shouts, kicking at a cardboard box. Statements go spilling across the floor. “Maybe I don’t want to babysit any more fucking monsters!”

Basira snaps her mouth shut, but the words are already out, already sinking into Daisy like teeth. A mask falls over Basira’s face and Daisy realizes all at once that she can’t read her anymore. Not like she used to. Time was she wouldn’t even have to think about it. Her eyes burn.

Basira’s watching her, waiting. Daisy wonders if she’s thinking the same. If she’s looking for something she still understands in Daisy’s face, something she can still rely on. Something with purpose. Something useful.

If that’s is all it’s ever been, all it’s ever going to be, if Basira won’t ever look at her again without searching for a sharp smile and flat predator’s eyes—

Maybe there had never been anything good to come back to.

“Then don’t,” Daisy whispers. “We’re not partners anymore. Haven’t been for awhile.”

Basira’s eyes widen. Her lips part. She hadn’t noticed how close they were. Not much room in the tiny office. Daisy can almost touch her, would only need to take one step. But they’re tilting on the edge of something, one wrong move from a steep slide into the unknown.

The moment passes. Basira presses her mouth into a hard line, jaw set. They slip. Daisy’s stomach lurches like she’s falling. 

Okay. Okay.

“That’s what you want, right? No more obligations,” she continues. The smile that pulls at her mouth feels like it’s going to split her in two. “Don’t need to worry about me anymore.”

Basira hesitates, her eyes like stones. And then she turns away. “No. Guess not.”

That shouldn’t be it, Daisy thinks. After everything. She feels like the world should end, like some power should come squirming through a hole in reality and make it official. But it’s so quiet.

Basira sits at her lonely little desk, plucks a book from one of several teetering stacks. Like it’s nothing.

“Close the door, please,” she says without looking up.

“Right.” If Basira hears the crack in her voice, she doesn’t show it. 

She turns to go. Just before the door clicks shut, Daisy hears the sound of books crashing to the floor. 

That’s something, she supposes.

-

She should still be angry at Jon. _Is_ still angry at Jon. But what does she have left?

She opens the door to his office without even the energy to be annoyed that it’s unlocked. He never did have much of a self-preservation instinct. 

He’s sitting at his desk. Not working, just sitting, head in his hands. He looks up at her. Registers the misery on her face, like looking into a mirror.

“Daisy?”

She doesn’t respond. Just drops herself to the ground beside his chair. She leans her forehead against his knee. Her fingers curl around the cuff of his jeans, desperate to hold on to something. 

Jon doesn’t say anything at first. But the man’s never met an awkward silence he wouldn’t try and fill.

“If—if you wanted to talk—”

Daisy shakes her head. Squeezes her eyes shut. There’s nothing to say. 

Jon sighs. Eventually, she feels his hand on the back of her neck. Daisy wheezes a laugh at how inadequate it is, at how badly she needs it.

She can’t stop the tears coming. Jon, to his credit, holds his peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me listening to ep176: no daisy?? [throws phone on the ground]
> 
> you can come say hi on tumblr [here!](https://corpsesoldier.tumblr.com)


	4. black

Maybe the worst thing is that her days don’t change much.

Daisy still spends most of her time holed up with Jon, sometimes working, something just sitting close enough to sense the presence of another person. She finds she has the patience for the endless sorting and cataloging of statements, hoping for some clue to give them direction or warning or—anything. Helps keep her focused, even if she and Jon both sometimes suspect it’s pointless. That they’re just waiting for the blade to fall and see which piece gets cut off this time.

Melanie checks in with her, occasionally. She seems easier now, less restless. Daisy’s glad someone is. She appreciates the gestures—how she’ll bring back food if she stops somewhere for lunch, or ask after her exercises. How she shoots her a sympathetic look when Basira walks through a room without speaking.

Daisy does her best to ignore it. Keeps her eyes forward when every part of her wants to turn, like a flower tracking the sun. 

Her days don’t change. She’s just stopped hoping they will.

So she makes herself useful. She works, and she talks to Melanie about her therapy, sometimes even listens to her advice. She tries to clean up, since the Archives seem to be in a permanent state of destruction. She acts the captive audience for Jon’s rambling explanations while he sorts out the tangles in his theories. She makes sure he sleeps and he returns the favor. She makes sure the both of them eat—normal wholesome human food that doesn’t do much to fill the sucking emptiness inside them.

She’s coming back with an early dinner—just sandwiches; there are days when Jon doesn’t seem up to anything more complicated—when she passes an open door and catches the sound of Basira’s voice.

“—help you are. Why are you even here?”

A laugh like a root canal rings out into the hallway. Daisy swallows, takes a step back from the door. She can sense it now, the faint twisting like walking across an uneven floor. Can almost smell it. The sick yellow sensation of the thing they call Helen sliding down her throat like oil. 

Melanie’s assured her that Helen only wants to help. That she got Jon and Basira home safe from the North Pole and, in fact, helped Jon get her out of the coffin. But the _wrongness_ of her sits on Daisy’s skin like the hum of electricity. She has enough trouble remembering what’s real without any help from the Spiral.

“I like to visit my friends, Detective. Everyone in the Archives is so terribly interesting,” Helen says in a bright voice.

Basira scoffs, shuffles some papers. “Dunno what gave you the impression any of us are friends.”

Helen tuts mockingly. “Had a little spat?”

“It’s fine,” Basira snaps. And then, more evenly: “It’s none of your business.”

Daisy wants to go, doesn’t want to listen to any of this. But she hasn’t heard Basira’s voice in days and she’s learning how many different hungers the body can hold.

Another terrible laugh, but softer. Almost sympathetic. “For a pupil of the Eye, you’re very good at not seeing.”

Something drops heavily to the desk. “Who asked you? What makes you think I want advice from the avatar of deception?”

“Oh, Detective, I wouldn’t lie to you. You don’t need my help for that.” Helen’s parting laugh is cut off by the click of a closing door, and the world snaps back into focus like a rubber band. 

Daisy hesitates outside, sandwiches getting soggy in their wax paper wrappers. She takes half a step without thinking about it. The door is open.

“Fuck,” Basira mutters in a voice Daisy’s never heard before. It’s almost a sigh, but there’s an edge to it. Desperate. _Beaten._

Daisy flushes cold, then hot. She feels her helplessness like a blade at her throat, frozen by a crushing certainty that walking through that door would be the absolute worst thing she could possibly do.

But she still hesitates. Listens to the sound of Basira breathing. Until she hears the ugly scrape of the chair pushing back across the floor, and Daisy turns tail and flees down the corridor.

-

“You need to talk to her,” Jon says one afternoon, apropos of nothing.

Daisy manages not to flinch, though the statement she’s holding ends up somewhat crumpled.

“Sorry?” she asks without looking up.

“Daisy,” Jon sighs.

“Jon.”

She sees him drop his head into one scarred hand. Her shoulders relax fractionally, and she turns her chair to face him. “Tried that,” she concedes. She spreads her palms as if to say, _see where it got me?_

Jon shakes his head. “I know you. Both of you. You shouted at each other. And now you won’t even be in the same room.”

“She doesn’t wan—”

“How do you know?” Jon says.

Daisy clenches her teeth. Is it enough to say that she’s tired? Tired of trying to be something she can’t, tired of hurting, tired of pretending. The purpose the Hunt gave her, lodged in her chest like a keen steel edge, is gone. Daisy should be grateful, _is_ grateful, to have her messy, jagged edges back. But most days they just cut her hands and sometimes all she wants is to stop bleeding.

“How do you know what she wants,” he presses fiercely, “if you won’t talk to her?”

“Didn’t do you much good, did it?” she says, voice hard.

Jon does flinch at that. He wraps both hands around the mug of tea in front of him, tepid and untouched, like if he were to let go it would fling itself across the room. Shame blooms hot in her chest.

“No, I suppose not,” he sighs.

“Jon, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—”

“No. No, you’re quite right.” He leans back in his chair, fingers still curled tight around the mug, and lets out a bitter laugh. “Some pair we are, hm?”

Daisy drops her eyes. She suddenly can’t stand to look at the cracked gray floor, the lifeless gray walls. She thinks about Lukas, strolling smug and unseen through the Institute, and the cold, empty spaces that gape between them all like wounds. They seem about to slip back into uneasy silence, Jon staring blankly at a statement he’d already recorded. She stands abruptly and he startles.

“Daisy?”

“Come on,” she says. “We’re going.”

“Where?” Jon stammers, but he’s already standing, plucking his coat from the back of his chair.

“I dunno. Somewhere that isn’t here.”

“I—” He stops when Daisy narrows her eyes at him. “All right,” he says.

They end up in a dingy little pub, all scuffed brown wood, the windows letting in the faintest yellow streaks of sunlight around the thick blinds. It’s good to be around people, their meaningless chatter filling the space, going on with their boring little lives. They share an order of chips. Daisy nurses a beer and keeps gesturing at the bartender to refill Jon’s, until he relaxes enough to ramble at length about about some bloody period of Russian succession, all murder and false princes. She laughs when he nearly knocks over his glass with a fervent, sweeping gesture and he laughs too, surprised and embarrassed.

The sun is setting when they leave. Jon leans heavily into her side as they walk back toward the Institute. She drapes an arm across his shoulders and feels a little of the crushing weight on her chest fall away. 

-

So they manage. They eat and sleep and work and for awhile Daisy thinks this might be it, for however long is left. Just a lot of mundane loneliness and the occasional bloody nightmare.

And then the hunters come.

Daisy swears she can smell them before her phone even rings. That’s ridiculous, she knows. She’s clear on the other side of the Archives, but she thinks she remembers the thick scent of blood in the back of her throat, the sudden tension in the air. She’s already moving toward the door when Jon calls. The hair on the back of her neck prickles at the sound of unfamiliar voices laced with familiar intent, and the call cuts off, and then she’s running.

The sound of the blood is so loud in her ears that she almost can’t hear the other hunters’ taunts. Two of them. She can’t take two of them. Not in this state. Not alone. But the woman has a knife against Jon’s throat. She ghosts it over the scar there—from another knife, another hunter. Her visions tunnels and she can see the gaps in their defenses like they’re haloed in light: ribs, throat, eyes. She won’t let them hurt him.

But she doesn’t have to kill them. Manages to scare them off, with nothing but a few threats and a growl. She thinks she ought to feel triumph, feel something, but her bones burn like hot lead under her skin and the moment the hunters are gone she sways and falls sideways against the desk. 

Jon approaches her and she recoils. She looks at him and sees bone and blood and tendon, sees all the soft places she could unmake him, and her stomach flips. She squeezes her eyes shut. She can still hear the hunters’ footsteps, distantly, and she knows how good it would sound to make them _run_ —

Listen to the quiet, she says. She can’t find it. She hangs on to Jon’s voice instead. It’s almost as good. It’s kept her sane before. He talks to her and she breathes and she answers as evenly as she can and she pushes it back. 

“We’d better tell Basira,” he says, and Daisy’s heart gives a little jolt at the sound of her name, and something slips. She loses it, whatever hold she had, for an instant, just an instant. Her heart races like it wants to escape her chest. When she opens her eyes there’s a thin pink haze around the edge of her vision, like blood smeared across a lens. She feels herself start to shake.

“I’ll go,” she chokes out, edging away from Jon. From how breakable he looks. From how easy it would be to hurt him, from her fear and how she wants very badly to hurt something. “Stay here,” she says, and when he opens his mouth to protest, _“Please.”_

She pushes out into the hallway and the smell of the hunters still lingers and it makes everything worse. Sharper and redder and worse.

Basira, she thinks. Go tell Basira. If she could just see her, she—she doesn’t know what exactly. Her thoughts won’t run in a straight line. Just the one impulse lodged there with the inexorable weight of a last request.

Everything is too loud, too bright. The hallway flows around her like treacle. She makes herself slow and stumbling, joints locked against the temptation to run. She falls against the door to the storage room and is distantly surprised it doesn’t splinter under her hands.

Basira sits at a desk, walled in by stacks of books and papers. Her sweater is bright golden yellow and Daisy squints against it, wishes it could burn through her like sunlight, leave her blank and clean. Basira looks up and Daisy, caught in fast-motion, can see the play of emotion in her eyes like a series of still images. Surprise—and something like hurt, or something like hope—and then the anger—and finally, the mask of indifference. Had that all been there before? Had Daisy just not been looking hard enough?

Then Basira really sees her and the color drains from her face. 

“Daisy, oh my god, what—” She stands, reaches out like she means to catch Daisy’s shoulders and Daisy flinches away so hard she hits the wall behind her with a thump.

She must be a sight, to make Basira look like that. She wonders what she sees. Do her eyes flash in the lamplight? Do her teeth all fit in her mouth?

Basira reached for her. No matter what happened, what will happen, she wants to remember that.

They freeze, watching each other, Daisy’s breath too fast, every exhale rumbling deep in her chest. Basira’s between her and the door. This was a mistake, she realizes dimly, a mistake. Her mouth waters, even as nausea crawls up her throat. She can hear Basira’s racing pulse against her eardrums and it sounds just like the blood, it sounds like _fear_. 

But Basira’s voice is calm. She’s always been good at that. 

“Daisy, what’s going on?” Daisy can barely hear her over the howl of the Hunt. “Talk to me. Say something.”

Her jaw aches. She tastes blood. She’s small and weak and hungry, god, she’s never been so _hungry_. She wants to bite, to tear flesh from bone, she wants to rip out something’s hot, dripping heart but the only heartbeat she can hear is _Basira’s_. 

She raises one hand to her mouth, intent on closing her teeth around the knob of her wrist. Thinks of tasting the blood there, of crushing the bone, just for something to hold on to, anything, she’s slipping and there’s nothing, nothing she can grab that isn’t slick with blood.

Before she gets the chance, Basira’s hand catches her sleeve. 

“Don’t—” she starts, but Daisy twists in her grip without thinking. Her hands lock around Basira’s forearms. Basira hisses through her teeth. But she doesn’t pull away.

“Daisy. Look at me.” Her voice is quiet, lost in the rush of blood.

“‘Sira,” Daisy chokes out through clenched teeth. It comes out distorted, low and jagged. She hates that she can’t have this last thing untainted. “‘M sorry.” 

She’s sorry for so much. She hopes Basira understands. She tried. The blood was always stronger than her, but she tried, Basira, she tried.

“Shut up!” Basira shakes her, voice firmer, louder to hide the edge of panic. “Listen. Look at me.”

Daisy does. Her face is so close, her dark eyes wet, her lips parted. Daisy wants to know what she tastes like. Everything’s all tangled up; the thought is red against her tongue.

“Come back,” Basira says. “Come back to me.”

She wants to tell Basira to run. Her mouth won’t form the words. 

“I need my partner. Okay, Daisy? Stay with me. I need you here.”

Daisy’s legs give out under the strain of holding herself still. Her knees hit the concrete floor and her whole body rings with the impact. Basira comes with her, dragged down by Daisy’s vice grip on her arms. 

“Daisy.” Basira raises her hands, trailing Daisy’s arms like shackles. She hesitates—only a moment, a single endless moment—before reaching out to cup Daisy’s face. A thumb trails across her cheek and Daisy leans into it, confused, scared, hungry. She catches a flash of quiet through the storm. “Daisy.”

A full body shudder grips her, starting at her head and rolling down her spine. It feels like it won’t ever stop. Like she would shake apart first, like her bones want to divorce themselves from her flesh, pulled in two directions at once.

Basira stays. A fixed point among the roiling confusion in her head. She talks for a long time. Steady. Rhythmic. Mostly the same words, over and over, like a prayer. Daisy listens and listens and listens, clinging to her voice like a raft, trying not to let the blood close over her head. 

She holds on. She doesn’t let go.

Eventually, the only heartbeat she can hear is her own.

“Basira.” It’s her voice. Thick and rough like she’d been screaming, but hers.

“Daisy, oh god,” Basira rasps.

Daisy’s face is wet. So are her hands. When she looks down, she can see blood against her skin. The fabric of Basira’s shirt is torn, the yellow soaked in great red stains. She lets go of Basira like she’d been burned, scrambles away from her. Basira’s hands linger for an instant against her cheek before she lets her go.

The wounds don’t look like claw marks. They look like the lines of Daisy’s hands turned to blades and sunk into Basira’s skin. Like her edges had all gone wrong and sharp. Long, straight cuts in the shape of her desperation.

A sob sticks in her shredded throat. “Basira, I’m sorry, I—”

“God, shut up,” Basira says, halfway to a high, desperate laugh. “Just shut up. I’m fine.”

She reaches for Daisy again, _again_ , sure and unhurried, like this is any other terrible thing they’ve seen and survived. But the movement pulls at the cuts and she winces, and Daisy shrinks away. The silence unfolds between them like a physical thing. Daisy can hear the drops of blood striking the floor.

“Come on,” Basira says after a while. Her eyes are so sad, so tired. If there is ever a time Daisy wants the earth to swallow her up, it would be now. She thinks she would walk herself into the dark again if it meant Basira wouldn’t have a reason to look like that. Basira gestures at her wounds. “Let’s get this taken care of. And then we’re going home.”

-

They find Melanie somewhere and she wraps Basira’s arms with the ease of practice. She quirks her eyebrow at Daisy when she refuses to take any of the bandages.

She can’t. Just sees her hands tearing through Basira’s skin like paper. Daisy balls them into fists, tucks them under her arms. She pretends she doesn’t see the long look Melanie and Basira share, the frank exhaustion.

But Basira doesn’t leave. She turns to look at Daisy over her shoulder, searching, expectant, and she waits until Daisy stands and follows her out.

-

They go home. 

Basira’s flat hasn’t changed since the last time, save for the accumulation of more dust. Daisy hasn’t been back, and it seems like Basira’s been avoiding it. But Basira marches into the kitchen and puts on a pot of coffee like nothing’s amiss.

Daisy settles herself on one of the stools pulled up the counter because she doesn’t know what else to do. She tries to convince her hands to stop trembling. For a few minutes, there’s nothing but the sound of the coffee pot ticking. Neither of them look at the other.

“Is it always that bad?” Basira asks without turning around. Daisy doesn’t remember the last time she heard her so quiet.

Daisy exhales shakily. “Not—not always.” She runs a hand through her hair. “There was an incident.”

Basira turns to look at her then.

“A pair of hunters came looking for Jon,” she explains slowly. She looks down at her hands, flexes her fingers thoughtfully. There are crescents of dried blood under her nails. She curls them into fists and looks up. “Scared them off, but...it was a near thing. It was—hard—not to hurt them. Even once they were gone, it was so... Well. You saw.”

“Yeah,” Basira says. Her eyebrows are drawn together, with the crease in between them that means she’s trying to figure something out. Finally, half a question: “They would have deserved it.”

Daisy sighs. “Maybe. But that’s not—” How can she make Basira _understand?_ “I hurt so many people. And it felt good. Made me feel strong. Safe. And it’s easy to say they deserved it, after. But it’s all excuses.” She shakes her head fiercely, avoiding Basira’s keen eyes. “It _lies_. Tells you you’re right. Tells you they’re wrong. And eventually everyone else starts to look like a monster.”

Basira’s breath slips out in a long sigh. She turns back to the coffee and pours two mugs. Daisy watches her spoon sugar into one— _did you want coffee with that, or?_ Basira joked once—with a kind of sick heat spreading over her skin, and she blinks rapidly before Basira turns around.

She slides Daisy the mug. Then she comes around the counter and sits on the stool beside her, their shoulders almost touching.

Daisy stares resolutely down into the coffee. “I just don’t want to hurt anyone anymore. Sometimes I think I never did. That it was just—easier.” Sometimes she thinks that would be worse. She swallows, not knowing what else to say. 

“Maybe I could have stopped you.”

Daisy’s head snaps up, and now it’s Basira looking stubbornly away. “Basira. The things I did—I kept it from you for years. You couldn’t have known.”

“I could have. I did. But I pretended I didn’t.” Basira takes a shuddering breath and closes her eyes. Then she opens them and turns, looks right at Daisy in a way she hasn’t since before the coffin, before the Institute, before she’d ever seen Daisy put a knife to Jon’s throat. Maybe she’d never looked at Daisy like this at all. “I didn’t have to think about trying to stop you, about losing you. Didn’t have to think about what it meant that we—that I—”

Basira curls her hands into fists. She hates to cry, won’t let the tears fall, but her next breath comes out a helpless sob. Daisy’s fingers twitch against the countertop, but she doesn’t move.

“I was the Hunt’s long before you got stuck with me,” she says instead. “You couldn’t have stopped me.”

“I could have tried.”

And it’s not like Daisy never wondered. Elias, the smug little prick, he’d been right—Basira has always been her last tether to humanity. What would have happened if Basira had demanded she stop?

How easy it would be to blame someone else. To blame solid, clear-headed Basira for turning away, for not keeping a tighter leash on Daisy’s conscience. 

Maybe the old Daisy would have. But probably not. Daisy doesn’t think she could ever really blame Basira for anything.

She almost laughs. It feels like razors in her throat. That’s their whole problem, isn’t it?

God, so much of what they have is broken. There’s so little time to fix it. Daisy would walk on her knees through the jagged rubble if it meant she could have Basira for whatever is left.

“Maybe we both could have tried,” Daisy concedes. 

Their hands rest side by side on the counter, so close Daisy imagines she can feel the heat of Basira’s skin. She can see the white bandages peeking out from beneath Basira’s sleeve, and the pink line in the shape of her teeth curling around her own thumb. She grips her mug tighter and drinks the coffee before it goes cold.

-

They order food and they talk, and Daisy’s so grateful just to hear Basira’s voice again that her whole body hums like a limb waking up. She helps Basira wash up. Basira tells her about the book she’s reading. And if they circle each other like they’re walking across black ice, like any sudden movement will send them plunging into the dark, well, it’s better than the past few weeks of nothing at all. It’s almost normal. It’s almost right. It’s the closest they’ve come since before the Unknowing and Daisy won’t be the one to break it.

It isn’t until they dress for bed that the same ugly fear rears up thick and cold in her chest. Basira’s sitting on the edge of the bed, watching as Daisy comes out of the bathroom. She feels pinned. Like whatever she does next will decide something and she’s too far away to see it clearly.

There’s something fragile in Basira’s face when Daisy meets her eyes. “All right?” she asks.

“Sure,” Basira says. 

She closes the distance as casually as she can manage. The air in the room is charged and some old instinct warns her to be careful, be alert. But Daisy’s just this side of exhausted and instead her faintly buzzing thoughts catch on Basira’s hair, long and dark and loose over her shoulders. It looks soft. How long has it been since she touched it? A year? It seems an impossibly long time.

And then she’s closer than she intended and Basira’s looking up at her. So close Daisy can see her swallow. She should step back. Should go around to the other side of the bed. Should do anything besides just stand there and stare at her, before she does something that they’ll regret.

Basira’s hands curl into fists in her lap, clutching at the material of her sweatpants. Something about the movement is familiar. Daisy’s hands flex in sympathy and—

Oh.

 _Basira’s_ afraid to touch _her_.

The realization is like a sunrise in her mind, the light casting strange, new shadows across the last few months. It’s so obvious she almost laughs. For the first time in ages, Daisy knows what Basira needs from her.

Maybe she’s wrong. Maybe it will break everything again. But she’s so damn tired of being afraid of _maybes_.

Daisy steps between Basira’s knees and Basira tilts her chin up to keep her eyes on Daisy, her whole face a question. For once, Daisy doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t let herself overthink it. She just reaches out and cradles Basira’s jaw, resting her thumb along the curve of her cheekbone.

“Daisy?” she breathes. Her skin flushes hot under Daisy’s hand and the heat travels all the way up Daisy’s arm and melts the choking fear behind her ribs.

Daisy smiles. She pushes her hand into Basira’s hair—she was right, it is soft—and cups the back of her head, wraps her other arm around her shoulders, and pulls Basira against her. 

She goes rigid, and for a moment Daisy worries that she overstepped, that she really can’t read Basira anymore, maybe won’t ever be able to again—

Basira wraps her arms around Daisy’s waist and crushes Daisy against her. Her fingers dig into the back of Daisy’s shirt. She can feel the slight trembling in Basira’s shoulders and holds her tighter. She wonders a little at how wonderfully, terribly easy it had been to take her into her arms.

Basira, her hot breath against Daisy’s stomach, says, “I missed you.” She says it with the kind of grim determination you might expect from someone reaching into their own chest to offer up their naked heart. Daisy huffs a laugh and rocks back on her heels a little, and Basira doesn’t let go.

When the hands clawing into her back feel a little less desperate, Daisy pulls away, more because she wants to look at Basira than anything else. But Basira’s hand comes up and locks around her wrist before she can go too far. There, with her hands on Basira’s shoulders, Daisy can see the exact moment Basira registers how thin her wrist is under her palm.

She takes inventory of Daisy—cheeks, collarbone, hips—with something like guilt blooming behind her eyes. Daisy wishes she could hide it, or that she could laugh it off, but they’re well beyond that now. Basira’s mouth twists slightly and Daisy’s afraid she’s going to say something and make them both look at it. Instead, she sighs and reaches up to grab Daisy’s sleeve and pulls her down next to her on the bed. Daisy relaxes against her when Basira wraps her arms around her shoulders.

“Hey,” she murmurs, running her fingers through Basira’s hair. “It’s all right. We’re all right. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“I want to.” Basira’s voice is muffled against her shoulder.

Daisy’s never been good at this. It surprises her how much she wants to be the one to comfort, to take a small piece of the burden away. To have Basira trust her to do it. For the first time in months, she feels purpose take root in her chest, warm and wanting.

“I love you,” she says into the soft curve of Basira’s neck.

Basira flinches. She untangles herself from Daisy, pushes back a little to meet her eyes. She looks unsure, more vulnerable than Daisy’s ever seen her.

Hasn’t she said it before? It seems impossible that she hasn’t. It feels like it’s lived inside her almost as long as the Hunt. There were times it was probably the only human part of her left.

“Thought you should know,” she continues, half-smiling, trying to keep the tremor from her voice.

Basira searches her face. She isn’t the same Daisy she remembers. Couldn’t possibly be, didn’t _want_ to be. But maybe this new Daisy is someone Basira still wants.

She must find something there. Basira doesn’t relax, exactly. Instead she looks focused, decisive. Familiar. She raises a hand to Daisy’s cheek, leans in, and presses her lips to Daisy’s.

It’s not that they’ve never done this before. But not like this. Never so soft, so tentative and reaching. Neither of them have ever been very good at gentle.

She might like to learn, Daisy thinks as she sighs against Basira’s mouth. She shivers, feeling a piece of her slide back into place.

Basira pulls back and rests her forehead against Daisy’s. “Love you too,” she says. Her warm breath ghosts against Daisy’s skin. Then Basira breathes a laugh and pushes forward, almost knocking Daisy back onto the bed. “Idiots.”

“Yeah,” Daisy chuckles, throat suddenly tight. “Yeah.”

She pulls Basira down on top of her. Basira’s cheek rests on Daisy’s chest and Daisy tucks her chin to bury her nose in Basira’s hair, and she wonders how she could ever have been so afraid of her.

When night comes, Daisy finds she doesn’t mind the dark.

-

Jon clocks them as soon as they walk into the Archives. Daisy has a cup of coffee in one hand, the other arm slung around Basira’s waist. Basira’s describing the research she’s been doing into the Web. She gestures with her own cup and the plastic lid is the only thing keeping her from slopping coffee all over the floor. 

She watches him take all this in. He looks better—by which Daisy means he looks worse. Hair a little grayer, cheeks a little hollower. A little reminder that not everything is as it should be. But he just raises his eyebrows at Daisy, face contorting like he’s trying to suppress a smile.

“Everything all right, then?” he asks, excessively casual.

“Shut up,” Daisy and Basira say in unison. 

And Basira laughs. Jon’s eyes widen momentarily, and then he does smile. Daisy grins back at him over Basira’s head. She pulls Basira a little closer, and her warmth is like the sun against Daisy’s skin.

-

She still dreams of Choke. She wakes in the dark, heart lurching to a gallop in her chest, expecting soil to push into her mouth like grasping fingers. She’s in the black and the deep and she’s _alone_ —

Except.

Except there’s an arm draped over her stomach, hand tucked up under her ribs. There’s a whisper of breath against her neck. A body beside her, pressed along the length of her back, warm and alive. Daisy can feel Basira’s heartbeat drum a slow, sleepy rhythm against her spine. 

Gradually, her heart falls into step. The fear slides off her like mud washed clean by the rain. Not alone.

Daisy closes her eyes and goes back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well whatever happens in this week's episode will probably kill me so better to get this finished. give the girls a little peace.
> 
> you can come say hi on tumblr [here!](https://corpsesoldier.tumblr.com)


	5. epilogue: red, again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this takes place during panopticon so it's sad, but in the face of overwhelming evidence I choose to remain hopeful

They were never going to have forever. Not with the things they’ve done, the lives they live. These last few months have felt, more than anything, like an ending.

It all falls apart at once, in the way it seems to for them. Martin’s missing. The hunters return. Some new monster with too-long limbs and a stretched smile scuttles down the corridor, calling Jon’s name. She and Basira look at each other and they both come to a decision. Daisy just doesn’t think it’s the same one. 

Jon needs to find Martin. Basira needs to protect Jon. 

Daisy needs to keep them both safe.

They tell Jon to go, and he does. “Don’t die,” he insists, eyes boring into Basira, fingers plucking Daisy’s sleeve. Daisy smiles—she should be so lucky. 

Then it’s just the two of them, and in spite of everything else, that feels right.

“I didn’t think it would end like this,” Basira says. And then she laughs. All the tension’s gone out of her in the wake of her decision, easy now that she knows what she needs to do. “You know what? Actually, I think I did.”

Daisy turns to her and drinks her in, like she’s trying to press the image of her between the pages of a book. Her dark eyes shadowed from too little sleep. Her mouth tilted in a small, resolute smile. The line of her shoulders relaxed. The fluorescents wash out the warm brown of her skin, but they make the goldenrod of her hijab into a miniature sun.

The blood is a deep, resonant drumbeat in her ears, but not yet, not yet.

She grabs the back of Basira’s neck and pulls her close, crushes her mouth to Basira’s. There shouldn’t be any softness to it. There’s no time for anything but final, desperate goodbyes. But Daisy holds every quiet moment she’s stolen close to her heart and she tries to make this one count. When they part, Basira’s panting against her, one hand fisted in Daisy’s shirt. She looks sad, and ready. Daisy’s almost sorry to take that from her.

“Basira,” she says. “Promise me something.”

And Basira does, like Daisy knew she would. Her partner.

“Now run,” she says, shoving her away. 

“Daisy—”

“Run,” she growls. And Daisy opens the door. 

The blood pours into her like spray from an arterial wound. It drips into her eyes, fills her mouth, and she’s drowning. 

She lets it come. She made her choice. She just hadn’t expected to be so afraid.

When the hunter opens her eyes, the world is familiar. Dark shapes move around her, painted in shades of scarlet, and she marks them as prey. Something like a laugh unfurls in her throat and emerges as a snarl from between her teeth. 

In the corner of her eye, something turns and flees, something yellow-golden-sunlight, there and gone. The chase instinct pushes hooks into her flesh and her muscles tense to spring, but from a dark, heavy corner of her mind, something holds her. More feeling than thought. 

_Mine._

She lets it go. 

The hunter doesn’t question it. She doesn’t question the way her heart races in her chest like the panicked fluttering of a caged bird, out of tune with the steady pulse in her ears. There’s no time for questions. Around her there are gunshots and cursing and high, delighted laughter—around her there is _prey_.

And the hunter hunts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the first thing I've finished in a very long time, so I hope you all enjoyed and I appreciate every single one of you
> 
> you can come say hi on tumblr [here!](https://corpsesoldier.tumblr.com)


End file.
